Caught On Camera!

I was sorting out videos earlier and came across some worthy ones of Aidan’s cousins.

When we were back home in March, it took a while for him to warm up to his grandparents, uncles and aunts but he instantly clicked with his cousins. I feel guilty for taking him away the life he could have had in Malaysia, his life would be more colourful if they were around.

I’ll make sure to play these videos for him so that he will always recognize them.

Here’s some of them :

I like the next one a lot, it shows how we spend our sundays back home with the kids all over the house.

Cousin Amber was caught hiding in Aidan’s toy box ! LOL!

The last time we were home, Aidan had a very bad cold so he didn’t get to jump into the pool with his cousins.

But he enjoyed watching them from the sides.

In the next one, you can see Aidan playing peekaboo with Fariz, and Farouq knocking his head with a toy hammer.

And here’s Elle on the bike,

And the next one has nothing to do with the cousins, just us fooling around with Aidan at home.

The Great Escape

In about 2 weeks time, we will be going home to Malaysia for a short break.

We had planned this trip months back but only bought the tickets last week, so the price we paid was ridiculously expensive.

But we’ll do anything to escape the dark, grey weather and I think I’ve had enough of the cold weather.

It’s time for some good ol’ tropical sun.

Seeing the tickets right in front of my eyes has definitely got me excited and that this trip is finally happening for real.

I can’t wait to live in our house again. The last trip was all about lights and fans, but this time I’ll be making sure that we furnish Aidan’s room . My top priority will be a solid, sturdy cotbed that can last till he’s about 6 years old. I’ve been doing some research on local websites and found a few to my liking. I just hope the quality is as good as the picture.

Last weekend, we also went looking for a compact lightweight, collapsible stroller. We finally found one at Mamas and Papas and I hope we made the right choice, apart from the fact that it was also on sale.

And once again, I find myself nervous with the idea of  traveling with an active baby. This time he’s much more mobile and I can envision him climbing seats, crawling up and down the aisles and standing in his bassinet!  I hope we survive that 12 hour flight to KL with much ease.

You better behave yourself, Mister!

Photo of the week :

I caught the boy doing a poo in his favourite corner

Oh, I can’t wait.

But first, I have to think about packing, and let’s hope I don’t overpack!

Open House 2009

The little one is taking his morning nap now giving me about 20 minutes to do up this post.

As promised here are some photos from the open house. After browsing through my camera, it turned out that I didn’t have that many photos after all *LOL*

To be honest, I was pretty nervous at the thought of  inviting friends over as the house was nowhere near ready. All we had was a kitchen that was 70% complete and a bedroom which only had a bed and a wardrobe. I only knew mum had placed her old furniture when I arrived in KL.

So that was why I handed out those invitations 3-4 days before, talk about last minute!

It was great to meet-up with all of  you after all these years especially Raz whom I haven’t met since those London days in 1998 or was it 1999??

And to Miss Cream who drove from KL- Ipoh for a friend’s wedding,  back to KL and arrived just in time for our do. I’m amazed that your kids are so well behaved after that really long road trip!

First to arrive was Mother of 3!

Princess Kiki has grown a lot since I last saw her

i've known her since our CBN days

Ithink I have like 10 shots of this particular photo. Didn’t know where to look, there were far too many cameras!

See what I mean ? ( Behind - Is that Imtiyaz having a go at the drum ?)

Another cam-whoring session in the house - oh so many babies!

Am envious of these 2 who have a full mop of hair whilst Aidan has none!

Momster and Dydd, I hope you didn’t go home hungry

To the rest : Coffee-junkie, Krezijexx, Nadio, Mummy-O, Tun – Thank you all for coming, I know some of you had many other obligations with the raya season going full force at the time.

And not too forget the lovely gifts and duit raya for Aidan, it was very much appreciated!

Hope to see all of you again next year!

ps: For some stange reason the quality of the photos are not great when I upload them here. Hmmm…

Aidan’s Aqiqah

Phew, it’s been quite a week.

My jetlag was terrible this time round – waking up at 3am and in bed by 6pm. It took me a couple of days just to get over it. It didn’t help that Aidan was down with a terrible bout of flu ( his first! ) that I had to give him a dose of antibiotics. It did the job though and he’s now back to his chirpy self.

He was in this state for the first 2 days we arrived back in Dublin

All the smiling on the plane took a toll on his health

My laundry and cooking is also now back on track.  5 loads of laundry and imagine all the drying, folding and ironing that came with it too. The kitchen is also up and running, I couldn’t take another day of takeaway!

Anyway, I had meant to put up photos of our trip but never came round to doing so as things have been a little chaotic around the house.

In brief, the trip home was short, memorable and very meaningful as it was our first time living in our new home. It was also our first raya as a family plus I have not been back for Eid since 1999.

Mom was generous enough to give us her old furniture so we felt comfortable living in the new house. We had 5 days to make the house look more decent for Aidan’s aqiqah so you can imagine the mad rush to buy lights and fans.

Amidst all that fiasco, mom and I were on another mission to buy gifts for the Marhaban ladies and guests.

We were expecting a group of 15 ladies but suddenly at the very last minute they confirmed a bus load of 35 will be attending the do. So there was another panic of  ‘What should we get for them?’. Mom finally decided to buy them kain so we bought 35 x 4 meters worth of kain baju kurung!

At the same time, I was organizing little gifts for guests which included chocolates and cookies. Smallhouse Cookies and Coochicoo did a brilliant job on the orders that I would gladly take them again for another occasion, they were efficient thankfully. And it also turned out that the lady who runs Smallhouse Cookies was a friend of my SIL, the name Enolil was too familiar to her What a small world!

3 days before the aqiqah we went to back to Tapah to pay a visit to Nenek’s kebun. Hubby, all dressed in army gear went in search for batang pisang ( to place the bunga telur ) as shown in the photo below.

Hard at work- ada macam macho sikit

A day before the big day, we were busy moving furniture around, arranging and rearranging carpets every single corner of the house.

We had less than 12 hours – tired and drained but the show must go on.

Putting-up fairy lights

One knackered Usu, 2 nephews, 1 Hitler

The big day came and Aidan was all dressed in princely garb. Unfortunately the baju melayu that mom bought for Aidan was a little too big so out came the emergency romper and satin shoes that I had bought for him from Ireland.

My biggest regret was not taking a photo of him individually, infact to be honest we had taken very LITTLE photos being the host.

I know my uncle took some great shots – there was one photo of the 3 of us that I must, must get hold of.

An hour into the ceremony, he demanded to be carried.

Aidan being Aidan, he decided to show his true self an hour into the ceremony by wailing his heart out.

So daddy came to the rescue and carried him around. It was already well  into his nap time so I don’t blame the boy for being cranky.

He managed to stay quiet in Daddy's lap

Whilst all this was happening, Aidan’s cousins were happily playing badminton behind our house.

This was obviously more exciting for them! Mana laa datang raket ni ? Sorang tu siap lengkap berbaju melayu!

Despite little hiccups here and there, overall we were happy with the ceremony. Eventhough we had taken very little photos, the happy memories will stay with us forever. Thanks to everyone who gave us a helping hand especially to Big Bro and SIL who went on a special quest to look for paperbags that fitted our taste and budget, it was very much appreciated!

And finally a photo of one of the gifts for the guests – I will try and take a photo of the rest when I get the chance.

The personalized chocolate

The last minute paperbag

And by the way, the show didn’t end there, we had an open house that very afternoon. I hope to put up the photos in my next entry!

Care To Shed Some Light ?

I am in my S.O.S  mood.

We will be heading home next week and does anyone out there know where I can get cheap, affordable readymade baju kurung ? So far nothing in my wardrobe fits! Mom also mentioned she bought Aidan his first baju melayu and I hope it fits him like a glove, if not – where can I get a decent baju melayu for a 4/5 month old ?

Despite getting all excited about our trip home, I am very nervous about the very long  journey. My biggest worry is his frantic screaming and I am all for sedating the little rascal on the flight if he gets a little out of hand but the daddy has strongly opposed the idea. So looks like I will have to pack his favourite blankie, toy and pillow along to recreate his bedroom scene in that tiny little bassinet, I hope it works. And that’s not counting the pre-sterilized disposable bottles and bibs, nappies, jammies etc that I have to lug too. Oh dear, oh dear – Wish me luck ! Any tips ?

I won’t be having much of a raya celebration this weekend as hubby will be oncall on Friday and Sunday eventhough we have been invited to a few houses. I’ll see how it goes. There’s so much to settle – we called the gardener over yesterday to mow the lawn which was looking rather desperate and Aidan also just had his 4 month vaccination and has been feeling rather contrary. He woke up twice in the middle of the night with a burning head. For the past 2 months, he has been sleeping alone through the night with no feeds, so last night was pretty alarming that he demanded a cuddle and that’s what he got, poor boy.

I am slowly organizing his Aqiqah from here – ordered little favours but I have yet to reconfirm with the people. I have warned mom to not bother about a decorated crib as the hefty boy is already rolling, topsy turvy! We have been joking about putting him in his bumbo seat but knowing him, he’ll be squirming to get out after 5 minutes. That’s why its best to have the Aqiqah when they’re 7 days old when all they do is sleep, hehe.

And…I haven’t come round to emailing you people about our open house! Now I wish I have Facebook, makes life easier. I hope to do so soon-ish (not Facebook)  so do check your email! If not, I have to rely on Momster for everyone’s number.  (How come I only have her number ?)

Some time this week I have to start packing our clothes, send the car for servicing, vaccinate Pepper ( I hope she doesn’t get a fever too) and prepare her food and lodging, clean the house as we’re expecting guests on Monday , iron hubby’s work clothes as he will be coming back to Eire earlier, juggle a very demanding 4 month old baby AND trying to read Dan Brown’s latest!  I know I can hire a babysitter as all of it can be done in a day or 2, but at the same time I know it’s feasible if planned accordingly. And then there’s raya too!

Okay, if you don’t hear from us – Selamat Hari Raya and Maaf Zahir Batin! Have a safe journey balik kampung .

Sorry no formal raya photo of the 3 of us on the sofa and I hope this will do- a pleasant walk in the park before heading off to a friend’s iftar last Saturday.

He kept looking away !

We wanted to take a photo of Aidan in his Harvard tee to give to my father but he was getting too distracted by the other tourists. I caught his Tok talking to him when he was just born  – ‘Nanti bile besar masuk Harvard macam Tok!’

You can be anything you want Aidan as long as you love Mommy! hehe.

Future Harvard Freshman ?

Lovely garden - I wish my lawn is as green as this

And finally now he decides to look at the camera!

ps: All this written in 15 minutes and me sounding like a choo choo train.

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Legendary

We spent our Sunday watching this popular musical.

I had heard so many good reviews about it last year and we were lucky that this trip home coincided with it’s second running.

Out of the blue, as we were contemplating whether we should go, A & F offered us 2 tickets and we thanked our lucky stars for it is not always that something free comes along.

We were very impressed with the show and found it just as excellent as other West End Musicals with superb actors, excellent choreography and extravagant sets.

I rate it 9 out of 10 and my only criticism would be that the music was too loud which muffled the singing at times. If given another opportunity, I would definitely return and I am sure many others would agree with me too.

Home Sweet Home

Ahhh….sun, sea and blue skies!!! Malaysia, truly asia. Heheh

It’s been a week since I arrived in Malaysia and it feels great to be reunited with the family after so many months.

I meant to update earlier but we have been extremely busy with family reunions, weddings, birthdays etc.

My grandmother is staying at mom’s place so that saves us a trip to Northern Perak. So far, out of the 5 must-dos, we have achieved 4. And now, with roughly 2 weeks to go, I think we will able to do more than expected.

I will update more when I have the time. As for now, I am trying to make the best of this very short trip and savour every precious moment with loved ones.

It feels really good to be back home once again and this is what I call Home Sweet Home .

Yes,

it’s true, we are coming home!

After weeks of toying between should we, should we not, should we, should we not ?

We finally decided, YES WE SHOULD!

You see, the decision would have been much easier if his holidays were not somewhat limited and restricted to 2 weeks. And plus, the prices were ridiculously exorbitant and enough to make a big hole in our pockets. (we also have to worry about our upcoming house project etc)

But we figured, it’s better now than later and with his cousin tying the knot, it was the perfect timing too.

With the very short amount of time, I have come-up with a list of must-dos which we will try our utmost best to achieve.

Amongst the top priorities are:

1) A drive-up to Northern Perak to visit my 94 year old ailing grandmother who currently is not in the best of health and on the way, stop by Tapah to visit Hubby’s grandmother.

2) Attend cousin’s wedding.

3) Spend as much time as possible with family and the 14 nephews and nieces that are so full of life and energy (and cuteness too!)

4) To finalize the design for the kitchen and lightings for the new house.

5) Abuse our digestive system with killer Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai (must be 100% mamak and not some fancy-schmancy restaurant please!)

I intend to add more to the list but even if we get to achieve the above, I would think the trip home is a major success already.

And with only a few days away till I reach home soil, I am getting very excited. I really can’t wait!

ps: photo above is of Istana Kenangan, Kuala Kangsar taken during our last trip home.

From Tipperary to Sayong

We came across this Irish cottage on our way to Waterford the other day.

You don’t see that many thatched cottages in Ireland nowadays so when I see one, I will try to take a photo of it.

For some strange reason, the old rustic traditional features reminds me so much of my ‘kampung’ back home.

I was looking through my old albums this morning and I found a few photos of Sayong.

My grandmother’s original house had been tastefully refurbished by my parents a couple of years ago and I think they did a brilliant job with it.

I know there is a lot to love about the features of this house eg. the meticulous carved wooden trimmings, but I especially love mom’s choice of the sunflower curtains which added a very warm ambience to the house.

It’s more of a holiday home for my family nowadays where they go to relax and unwind, waking up in the mornings to the beautiful scenes of Sungai Perak.

This is the scene if you are looking out from the main window.

Lovely, right ?

Oh, and did I tell you that hubby was at war with the mosquitos the last time we stayed here? Heheh.

Now I really wish I was back home in Malaysia, sigh.